


Beatrice's Element

by midas_touch_of_angst



Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events - One Shots [7]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Character Study, Fire, Gen, Introspection, Mother-Son Parallels, Mother-Son Relationship, One Shot, Parallels, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 09:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20964437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midas_touch_of_angst/pseuds/midas_touch_of_angst
Summary: Bertrand was water. Beatrice was fire.Nobody was sure what to make of Klaus until it was too late.(One-Shot, Character Introspection. Happy Klaus day, and Happy 18th Birthday Louis Hynes!)





	Beatrice's Element

**BEATRICE’S ELEMENT**

Everyone always looked at Klaus and knew he was Bertrand’s son. He had his father’s poor eyesight, for starters, and glasses that even matched his. His hair looked like his father’s too, the way he’d styled and parted it- intentionally, of course, he wanted to look like his hero. And when he spoke, it was even more obvious; he had his father’s penchant for big words, and his inability to read a room or figure out social cues. He even had similar mannerisms- adjusting his glasses when he was nervous, fiddling with the edge of his shirt, bouncing slightly on his feet when he was excited. 

It took a lot longer to recognize the Beatrice in him. 

Beatrice and Bertrand’s close partner, before he went on the run, once described Bertrand as water. He was an adapter, able to change faces depending on what he wanted from someone. Some found this deceitful; Bertrand and Beatrice found it helpful. He had trouble reading people, sure, but once he figured out what they wanted, it was easy to maneuver around them. But he also had the gentleness of a flowing river, and the laughter of a bubbling brook. He was water, through-and-through.

Beatrice, meanwhile, was described as fire. She was powerful, and unstoppable. She could not be halted when she had a plan, an idea, a purpose. Her flames could be fuelled by anger, true, and hatred, but also from love. If anyone hurt her family, she was ready to burn. 

The members of both sides of their organization found this out only a little while before Klaus was born. Bertrand had been captured on a mission- investigating Anwhistle Aquatics and making sure it was still on their side. Unfortunately, while traveling through the tunnels, he came across some from the other side. 

Beatrice found out the second he didn’t return on time. He was always on time. So she went into the tunnels, tracked down where he’d disappeared and where the pursuers had gone, and found them hiding in an abandoned building, waiting to receive news from their superiors. 

There were five firestarters. Beatrice, fire, had them on their knees within thirty minutes. 

“Now,” she said, knife pointed at the first man, fully intending to slice him and move onto the next one if necessary, until she got what she wanted. Her eyes were embers, sparking as she let her hate leak into the horrid look she gave the man. “I’m giving you five seconds. Where is my husband?” 

He was in the closet. She pulled him out, left the firestarters tied up against the wall, and took him back home. 

When they left the organization, the Volunteers were furious they’d lost such valuable members. But they were also a little afraid of what they might do if they tried to force them to stay. 

Still, they kept an eye on the family. Violet was very much like her parents- quick to improvise, but with the fire needed to protect- but to them, Klaus seemed to just be Bertrand. In fact, maybe a more extreme version; he didn’t seem to be able to manipulate, and was even worse at talking to people. He might be earth, refusing to change and standing strong. He might be air, flowing and free and unable to stay in one place. 

Sunny, meanwhile, was definitely fire. They didn’t want to mess with her. 

But some saw Beatrice in Klaus, too. Once, when they were six and eight, Klaus and Violet were on a playground, and some older kids had pushed Violet to the ground. She’d started to cry, and they laughed. Klaus, in this instance, would usually cry, too. 

But he simply glanced behind him, seeing his parents were starting to take notice, and he walked up to the bullies, looked them in the eye, and calmly informed them that if they laid a hand on his sister again, they’d be in trouble. They didn’t believe him, of course, but then Beatrice came up and fixed them with such a glare that they understood the boy’s threat perfectly. 

When the children’s unfortunate events began, people thought he’d become even more Bertrand, but some recognized the sparks starting to grow in his eyes. When he glared at Olaf, when he spat at the henchpeople, when he’d roll his eyes at Poe’s antics or clutch Sunny to him when something was happening, that brought images of his mother, perhaps still standing behind him in some form, even though she was gone. 

Some Volunteers, positioned at the Heimlich Hospital, saw that fire. He shouted at the doctors, he shouted at the patients, and then he grabbed the cart his unconscious elder sister was on, placed Sunny onto it, and ran. He wasn’t letting anyone harm his family. 

That fire, again, at the trial at the Hotel Denouement. “You can’t trust the authorities!” he shouted, his eyes enflamed. He sounded just like her, as he and his siblings chased Olaf, forcing him to take them along. They weren’t letting him get away, not anymore. 

Then he disappeared for a while. Many thought the Baudelaires may have perished in the fire at Hotel Denouement, but others pointed out the fact that there weren’t bodies. They’d learned to be wary of missing persons with no bodies to be found. 

The siblings started appearing again, dotted sightings in several different places. Different names, too. But the Volunteers who thought they’d spotted them said they didn’t seem concerned, or frightened. Violet’s eyes lit like her mother’s, as if they were on an adventure. Sunny’s eyes were warm as she looked upon a little girl they had with them, maybe around two years younger than her, whispering happy things. Klaus had the calm waves behind his gaze that his father always had, when he picked up the young girl and spun her around, or when he checked out a book, excited to share it with his sisters. 

When the little girl was seven, she disappeared. 

Easy recruitment. Her and Sunny had a fight, and Sunny left her alone. The window was easy to open. The Baudelaires hadn’t been able to catch up to the car. The Volunteers who’d recruited her didn’t think too much of it, even when she told them her name, a name that should have worried them. 

It was almost a year later when they were found. 

The three of them were on another mission, watching a potential recruit at a dance academy. They’d ducked into a backroom to discuss, gather their notes, figure out what to tell headquarters. 

A young girl had come up to them, asking if they’d please move so she could reach the spare slippers. They’d moved, groaning inwardly and wondering when she’d leave. 

Then she turned to them, and said, “You don’t recognize me, do you? I almost didn’t recognize you. But Klaus doesn’t forget faces.” 

They’d frozen, and that’s when Violet appeared behind them with a grappling hook and a fierce, deadly look in her eyes. Sunny removed her wig- a simple disguise, they should’ve seen through it- and helped her knock them to the ground, throw them to the wall, tie them to a beam. 

“Everyone else left the building.” Violet said calmly, using a sumac knot to bind them. “So nobody can hear you.” 

She stood back, a hatred in her gaze. Sunny stood by her, baring her teeth. 

Klaus came in, then, and at first, he seemed oddly blank. His face was passive as he scanned the volunteers, as if they were people he thought he might know from an old school. No emotion as he stepped forwards. Then he nodded, and shut his eyes, and when he opened them, they all saw that fire. 

He knelt in front of them, and he had a knife in his hands. He twirled it for a moment, as if he was simply showing them a trick with it. Then he pointed it at the first volunteer. 

“Now,” he said, and his voice was dark. “I’m giving you five seconds. Where is my daughter?” 

He may look like his father at first glance, but if you looked closely, he had his mother’s face shape, and eye shape, and nose. He had her ability to frighten with just a look, her piercing glares and swift steps. And those volunteers realized, then, that he was not Bertrand’s water, and he was not earth or air or any other element. He may have been, once, but those elements had been, long ago, swallowed by the flame.

Klaus was his mother’s son. Klaus was pure fire.


End file.
